Shocking news came out of the Queens of the Stone Age camp earlier this week as Joey Castillo's departure was announced - with Dave Grohl filling his shoes in the studio.
Last year we sat down with Joey for a chat and he gave us an insight into the punishing touring schedule that he had put himself through over the last decade.
"For myself, since the moment I joined Queens in '02 it never stopped. Picking up right from Songs For The Deaf straight into two new records. The touring was relentless. It was non-stop. I think we all love that. It's fun to be creative and be working and keeping something like that moving. But after a while it really starts to beat you down. We all kind of knew it was the time to step away for a second."
That time came with Queens' hiatus, but that didn't mean a nice break for Castillo, even if that was his first thought.
"That was the plan," he admitted. "But it didn't happen like that. For me it was Eagles of Death Metal. That ended up being almost a two and a half year tour. Literally it went right back into the start of this run with Queens."
Castillo also revealed to us that he hadn't got off the plane from the last Queens tour before Josh Homme had twisted his arm into joining up with Eagles of Death Metal.
"I can remember when we were ending the Queens tour and we were flying back to the States. Me and Josh were sitting next to each other on the flight and he was pounding his brain for drummers to get for the tour. I was sitting next to him going, 'I know this is coming at any minute, I know he's going to ask me but I wish he would just ask me already'.
"But he hadn't, he was saying he needed me to rack my brain and we came up with this list of all these people and at the same time I was thinking I knew that by the time we'd land I would have taken the gig. Sure enough he was like, 'What do you think about doing it for two weeks?' They had a tour with The Hives in the States and they just needed me to do it for two weeks while they found somebody. So I thought okay that sounds fair.
"Ultimately I was kind of thinking in my brain that I could use a little downtime and work on whatever and my girl was happy that I was going to be home for a little while. Two weeks turned into two years. Just like that."
